Lola’s Ramblings: How do you use your Goodreads Shelves?

Lola’s Rambings is a feature on Lola’s Review where I talk about me. Usually these posts are everything that doesn’t fall under any standard header, like blog tours, book blitzes, cover reveals or reviews. Lola’s Ramblings posts are are personal discussions of a certain topic. Sometimes about book related topics and sometimes about non-book related topics. This feature was previously known as About Me. The banner for this feature is designed by Michelle from Limabean Design.

Most book bloggers probably have either heard of goodreads or use it daily. While I used to use goodreads a lot more than I do now, one of the features I steadfastly use is the ability to keep track of what I read and to shelf my books. I always think it’s fascinating to see how other people use their goodreads shelves, so today I am going to talk about my goodreads shelves and I hope you share something about your goodreads shelves as well!

My Goodreads Shelves

Okay so let’s see which shelves I use and why! The picture on the side is taken on January 1, 2015 when I wrote this post. At the moment the numbers probably have changed already. I have 15 different goodreads shelves.

All. Everyone has this shelve which includes all of your books, I don’t think I use this shelf a lot as I am usually looking for something more specific, unless I am just looking up a book for some reason.

Read (exclusive). This shelf includes all my read books, I am pretty sure not all read books are on this shelf, but it comes pretty close. I once decided to add all my manga’s as well and then decided I wouldn’t. So some manga’s are added to goodreads and some don’t. Maybe I should make up my mind once.

Currently Reading (exclusive). I always feel a bit sorry for this shelf as it usually only includes one book. I am a solo book reader and usually only read one book at a time. Recently I started trying out this whole read two books at the same time thing, one book on my ipad during breakfast and one book on my Kobo for in the evenings, so this shelf now contains two books usually.

To-read (exclusive). This shelf includes all those books I want to-read, whether I own them or not, I have another shelf to make that distinction. It used to contain more books than my read shelf, but after I did some goodreads shelf cleaning I got this one back to a more manageable number. Okay no to-read list is ever manageable, but still.

DNF (exclusive). Since I read a post about goodreads shelves on oen of the blgos I follow I added this shelf, sorry can’t remember the name of the blog. It’s an exclusive shelf as I am of the opinion that books I haven’t finished aren’t really read so now they sit on this exclusive shelf. Before I realized you could add another exclusive shelf beside read, currently reading and to-read I just had this one as a normal shelf and I am happy when I finally realized I could change that. So this shelf includes all the books I did not finish.

Books that I own. All the books that I own either as a physical copy or as an e-copy are added to this shelf. Usually this means they leave the wishlist shelf and get added to this one instead. I find it easy to use the multiple shelf selection function to click the to-read shelf and this one for a quick overview of all the books I want to read that I own. I am not sure if all the read books I own are also on this shelf as I only added this shelf later and was more concerned by adequately shelving all my to-read books.

e-books on ipad. I only added this shelf recently to distinguish between books I have on my Kobo and on my ipad, this shelf includes all ebooks that are on my ipad. I don’t like reading on my ipad as the screen is very bright and it hurts my eyes, but in the morning and in the summer it isn’t too bad though. As a rule the books on this shelf are less likely to get read then those on the Kobo shelf.

e-books on Kobo. This includes all ebooks that are on my Kobo. I love my Kobo and most e-books I try to get in epub format so I can read them on my Kobo. I do sometimes grab free books from amazon though and I can only read those on my ipad. I am happy I now have seperate shelves for this.

For Review. This shelf includes all books that I received for review. I like checking this shelf to see which books I got for review that I haven’t read yet. I check this shelf often and I find it handy to have one shelf with all my review books, so I can keep track of them.

Got a copy for review reviewed.This shelf includes all the books I received for review that I actually reviewed. I hate the long and weird name of this shelf, but I guess it get’s the point across. I made this shelf after I heard of the rule that every book you got for review needed to have that mention in the review, so I made a shelf for all the books I reviewed and then started editing all my reviews. Even after that I decided to keep this shelf, every book I get for review first get’s added to the for review shelf and when I read them they end up on this shelf. I guess just having a review shelf would work as then there’s still the distinction between read and to-read, but I kinda like having a shelf for this.

Historical. I added this shelf when I signed-up for the Historical Reading Challenge 2015 as I plan to read more historicals this year. To make it easy to find them, I decided to make a shelf for them.

Lola’s Blog Tours. This shelf is to list all the books I toured with Lola’s Blog Tours. I don’t want to read every book I tour, so that’s why I also have the wishlist shelf, not every book on my to-read list is also on my wishlist shelf. I aded this shelf as sometimes I want to add the tour information to my review of the book so more people hear about the sign-ups, the only way to do this is to add it to my to-read list in the first place.

Netgalley. This shelf includes the books I got through netgalley. I think I have to update this shelf once as it only includes the netgalley books I remember to add. The whole idea behind this shelf is that I don’t have to go to netgalley to check which books I got through them and to remember when I read a book from this shelf that I have to post my review on amazon as well. I guess it would work if I rememeber to actually add every book I get throguh netgalley.

Paperback/ Hardcopy. This shelf includes all the books I own as a physical copy. This shelf isn’t perfect though as I only went through all my to-read books, so this shelf doesn’t adequately display the the status of my read books. The idea behind this shelf is so I can see in goodreads whether I have a book as an e-copy or physical copy, usually my memory works well, but sometimes I am not so sure and then the reminder is handy.

Wishlist. This shelf includes all the books I want to read, but not yet own. Not all books that care on my to-read list are on this shelf as well, but it comes close. The exceptions are some Lola’s Blog Tours books.

34 Responses to “Lola’s Ramblings: How do you use your Goodreads Shelves?”

My GR shelves used to be really messy! I’ve only cleaned it out last month (talking about piles of unsorted books dated back to 2010!). I used to have really funny names for them such as “Books that made me swoon” and “Why cant it be released sooner!”, now that I think about it, it was super childish yet equivalently fun, and it’s interesting to see what GR have to recommend me based on my shelves 😛 But I now basically organized my books into 3 major shelves, and 3 minor shelves. Major ones are the usual: Read, Currently Reading and To-read. The minor ones would be: Wishlist, ARC and Netgalley.

Thanks for sharing your shelves with us Lola! At least your shelves were way more organized than mine! 😛

By the way, I have nominated you for the versatile Blogger Award! Check it out here 🙂 Have a nice day!

I always think it’s fun what weird names people come up with their shelves. I am really pragmatic with goodreads so all my shelves have a goal and mostly they serve to organize my books. Those 6 shelves are probably some of my most important ones as well and my for review shelf, I couldn’t do without that one.

My shelves are quite straightforward. To be read are books I physically own that I have not yet read, Wishlist is books I want to buy, Read is books I have finished, Abandoned is books that I did not finish, Currently Reading is what I’m reading now and the next books I plan to read. Then I have my genre shelves including one where I have audio and ebooks together. I haven’t put every book I’ve ever read on the Read shelf, just whst I’ve read in the last 5 or 6 years. If I was to putevery book I’ve read in my life there would be THOUSANDS!chucklesthescot recently posted…Book Review: Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong (WOTO #10)

Most of your shelves that I also use, although I use my currently readign shelf only for books I am actually reading at the moment. I probably forgot to shelve some of my books on goodread,s but when I staretd goodreads I tried to add most of the books I had read up until that point and since then I added eveyr book I read to it.

Wow, you’re so organized, Lola! I doubt I could actually do something like this as I get so distracted easily and can’t work on one thing organizing stuff at a time (unless it’s a paper due tomorrow… haha! My brain works weird like that). I only have the usual shelves (Read, To Read, Currently Reading, DNF, On Hold) and the rest are more like “tags” to help me distinguish what kind of books they are. Like I have shelves called “good heroine” or “haunting narration” or “humans are scary” or “philosophical” 😀 It’s better for me to that way especially when a friend asks for a specific kind of book to read. I can just scout for the appropriate “tag” and pick from there!Faye M. recently posted…Review + Interview + PH Giveaway: The Distance Between Lost and Found by Kathryn Holmes

I would this up slowly and in a few instances I had to spend quite some hours getting them all organized, but if all the books are shelved correctly it makes things so mcuh easier.
Those tags sounds handy! I always like seeing how people shelf book as soemtiems it can tell you something about the book.

You have a lot of great shelves! My shelves used to be super disorganized, until I finally cleaned it up last year. My exclusive shelves are of course read, currently reading, and to read, but I also have a DNF shelf, and a wishlist shelf for books I want to read, but don’t own. The rest of my shelves include e-book versions, physical books, classics, review copies, books on language, nonfiction, favorite authors, library borrows, high school reads, and college reads. I really love organizing my books into shelves. It’s one of the only things I’m super organized about. Lol 🙂Lily recently posted…Friday Updates

Thanks! I am glad I took the time to organize my shelves as it’s a big help, it takes a lot of time, but it is worth it. I don’t read a lot of non-fcition, but if I did I would totally make a shelf for that as well. I am always considerign makign mroe shelves for different genres, but it’s such a pain to that when you alreayd have so many books shelved.

In the last 8 months or so I’ve really started capitalizing my use of goodreads shelves. I did a post about them back in August I think – that was when I discovered you could make and exclusive shelves – so I have a shelf for owned-but-not-read and also need-to-read-for-review. Those are both exclusive and separate from my want-to-read shelf. That shelf is for all my books that I come across reading blogs. Later, once my excitement from the post has worn off, I sort those into their appropriate level of wanting to read (dying, maybe, hope-to).

Oh and I also have shelves for all my challenges and the month I read a book. This is less foe organization and more so that I can just grab the shelf widget and put it on the blog to quickly and easily display the books I’ve read.Berls @ Fantasy is More Fun recently posted…Life of a Blogger | Concerts

It was such a discovery when I found out you could make exclusive shelves, I wish I had know earlier. I had 4 different wishlists hslves once based on how badly I wanted it, but I kept changing it and forgettign to shelf book and it just didn’t work as I forget to keep up with it, so I eventually just stayed with the wishlist shelf. I lvoe my review shelf, it makes it so handy to see which books I have for review, although I usually cringe when I see how many books are on there, 62 at the moment…

Instead of making shelves for challenges I draft the recap post for the challenge and every time I finish a book I add it to the appriopiate post, it’s handy as long as you keep track of it. In soem cases I think having a shelf would make it easier.Lola recently posted…Lola’s Ramblings: How do you use your Goodreads Shelves?

My GR shelves are all over the place. My exclusive shelves are used to shelf the books that I’ve read, that I want to read, that I need to buy asap, that I’m currently reading, that I own (one shelf for physical copies, one for ebooks). My non-exclusive shelves are to categorise them based on genre, and also some stuff about whether or not I liked the main character/villain/love interest/romance, and if it made me laugh, things like that. I use them religiously and it’s nice to browse through them if you’re looking for a certain type of book (i.e. for rereading).Inge @ Bookshelf Reflections recently posted…Review: How to Fall in Love by Cecelia Ahern

You have quite some exclusive shelves, I only recently found out you could make exclusive shelves and the only shelf I really wanted to be exclusive was DNF. I like it when people make shelves for genres and things like whether they liked the main character, I usually just re-read my review to know those things, which isn’t as efficient.Lola recently posted…Lola’s Ramblings: How do you use your Goodreads Shelves?

I definitely do not use Goodreads to its full potential. I was working on organizing my shelves last year, but my motivation fizzled out. I should get back on that. When I set up Goodreads, it was long before I was a book blogger, and I honestly didn’t use it much. I set it up like a library (I’m a librarian, what can I say) but that isn’t working so well for me anymore.Quinn @ Quinn’s Book Nook recently posted…Review: Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris

It does take a lot of time to organize your shelves, I wish I thought more about them once I first started using goodreads. It’s less effort when you start out right.Lola recently posted…Review: Flip by David Estes

Hem… I have… 95 shelves… I’ve also filed the books according to the year they were released (sometimes there’s a big buzz when they come out then you never hear about the author again) and what year I’ve read those I’ve read – I don’t do challenges any more this year, that’s my way of knowing where I’m at. I would like a shelf “don’t want to read”, that would be very useful, maybe I’ll create it 🙂Red Iza recently posted…The e-reader junkie has just moved (again)

Okay, I have 51 shelves and have actually thought about a few more that I want. I have four exclusive shelves, I have two separate wishlists and a TBR pile shelf. I have a Net Galley and a Review shelf. Then I have all the major genres represented with several sub-genre niches, I have age level shelves. and finally I have reading challenge shelves. Like you this is where I track my books so I’m meticulous about my shelves.Sophia Rose recently posted…To Be or Not to Be…Read TBR Pile Vote February

I never did the whole shelves for genres things as usually there are many other goodreads users who do. But I do think it’s important to have ym shelves organized and I try to keep track of everything on there.

I just recently adjusted Goodreads shelves and it has helped me so much keep track of all the books I have, plus all the challenges that I am doing. I think most of your list is about the same as what I do. I also did an exclusive DNF I count them as being read but not for the Goodreads challenge so I need someplace else to put them.

If you organize your shelves it can really help keep track of all the books you have and want to read, that’s one of the things I love about goodreads. I am thinking of makign shelves for challenges, that might be handy.

I have a looot of shelves! I had to trim them but I think I’m about 70-90+. I usually make them as my “labels”, and they’re very useful when I’m searching for a book but I can’t remember the title. I usually group them by themes too or elements of the story, aside from the genre. And I also have a books I own shelf too, but they’re for my print books 🙂Goldie @ My Book Musings recently posted…Review: Wallbanger [Cocktail, book 01]

My memory is usually pretty good when it comes to books, but I can see how using shelves as labels would be handy. I never wanted to go through the effort of creating label shelves and having to shelf all my books again. I wish I had decided on a handy system when I started goodreads, it’s handier that way.

Hey there! I’ve nominated you for an award (or two). I was recently given some blog awards from some very special bloggers, and I’ve nominated you for those same awards. Come take one, or all (you’ll see what I mean!!) Thanks for having a great blog. Come get your Blog Award!Karsyn @ KaKiJoKoJa recently posted…Blog Awards

I started to port over all my unread bought ebooks books from Amazon to GoodReads…and it took forever to go through and decide which to add. So I quit at less than half-way done. That would be my “to-read” shelf.

Of the ones I made myself? I have “5 star”, “4 star”, “3.5 star”, “3 star”, “2 star”, “1 star”, and “DNF”. Once I finish a book, it gets moved to whichever shelf corresponds with the star rating I’m going to give the book on my blog.

I don’t use my Currently Reading shelf, as I never remember to go in and add the book before I’ve finished the book. So it’s pretty much pointless for me. I also don’t use GoodReads a whole lot, otherwise I might be there often enough to have other shelves.Silvara recently posted…Vision in Silver (The Others #3) by Anne Bishop (review)

You use your shelves well, Lola. I only recently started using shelves to keep track of reads I have or have read for challenges, as well as dividing by genre. I need to spend some time cleaning up my shelves. But it takes time. 🙂 I like that you have shelves for where the books are located – iPad, Kobo… I should do that as well. I have 3 ereaders and it’d be nice to be able to quickly check GR to see whether I already own a book and which device on which to find it. 🙂Bookworm Brandee recently posted…Blitz & Giveaway ~ The Complete Submission Box Set ~ CD Reiss

Yeah cleanign it up takes time, I cleaned them up at the end of last year and it helpes a lot, but always when you start doign soemthing I am amazed at how much tiem it costs as there are so many books on my shelves. Those shelves for where the book is lovated are a big help and I am happy I added them :). Only my alreayd read books aren’t shelved yet, but my to-read books are more important when it coems to where they are lovated.

I use my goodreads shelves a little bit like you do, but I have genre shelves, release year shelves, challenge shelves and others as well. on my TBR shelf, I only have books I actually own, have on pre-order, or will preorder as soon as possible. I also have shelves for books I’ve gotten cheap, as some challenges I participate in – like COYER – set a price limit for books that count towards the challenge.
Yet another great discussion post, Lola 🙂
I hope you’re having a fantastic week!Lexxie @ (un)Conventional Bookviews recently posted…Review: This Heart of Mine – Brenda Novak

I always check genre shelves of other peopel if I want to know the genre, although I do group my reviews on my blog on genre. I am considering making challenge shelves as that woudl be handy. Do you use those challenge shelves for books that qualify for that challenge or for books your read durign that challenge?

For challenges, I actually have more than one shelf, especially for COYER. I have one shelf with books that qualify, and another one with books read for the challenge… I keep adding more shelves, too, as I find things that might be interesting for myself when I am searching through my books.
For the Reading Assignment challenge, I have added all the books I mentioned I am reading for that challenge, and then, I can sort by date read if I want to see what I still have left to read.Lexxie @ (un)Conventional Bookviews recently posted…Blogtour Review: Winter’s Wolf – Tara Lain

That’s handy then you can see all the books that qualify on one shelf and keep track of what you already read for that challenge. This is my first year doign reading challenges, so I am still figuring out what works for me, now I make the recap post in advance and keep adding books I read for the challenge to the recap post. It works, but I might give the whole goodreads shelves thing a try to see if that’s handier.Lola recently posted…Review: Shadow Study by Maria v Snyder

You’re very organized with your shelves, I keep a review copies shelf as well. I was a wreck with mine when I had over 2000 books on my TBR, now I barely have 400 which I’m happy about. I feel the lesser the shelves, the more easier they are to handle. I have about 15 shelves I think, I’m going to keep only 10 for now. Great discussion post <3Benish recently posted…Angelfall ♥ by Susan Ee Review

Thanks, I try to stay organized with my shelves. And a smaller TBR is certainly easier to handle, having too many books on your to-read list can feel so overhwelming. I probably will add more shelves instead of remove them, as for now I think I’ll stay around this amount for a while.Lola recently posted…My To-Be Read List #8: chosen book

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